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News

The U.S. Senate passed its version of tax reform, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, H.R. 1, early Saturday morning by a vote of 51–49, with all Democrats, both independents, and one Republican voting no. The vote followed two long days of debate and amendments. The bill, as approved, differs significantly from the version that was introduced by the Senate Finance Committee.

The Senate Finance Committee on Thursday evening approved its version of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, sending the bill to the full Senate for debate and a vote. The committee had spent the week amending the bill, and the final version includes some changes beyond those included in the chairman’s mark released on Tuesday. (For prior coverage, see “Senate Finance Committee Modifies Tax Reform Proposal.”)

The Senate is expected to take up the bill after it returns from its Thanksgiving recess.

The U.S. House of Representatives passed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act bill, H.R. 1, by a vote of 227–205, on Thursday afternoon, with all Democrats and 13 Republicans voting no.

The legislation as passed had not been amended since its approval by the House Ways and Means Committee last week (see “House Ways and Means Approves Amended Tax Cuts and Jobs Bill,” for details).

The bill features four tax brackets for individuals, instead of the current seven; a larger standard deduction; the repeal of many itemized deductions; a reduction of the corporate income tax rate to 20%; repeal of the alternative minimum tax and, after 2023, the estate and generation-skipping taxes; and many other changes.

After two days of markup, the Senate Finance Committee released a revised chairman’s mark of its version of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act late on Tuesday. Among the many changes, the revised bill would sunset almost all tax changes affecting individuals after Dec. 31, 2025. This allows the bill to conform to the Senate’s budget reconciliation process, which requires bills to not increase the federal deficit for more than 10 years. The repeal of the alternative minimum tax would also sunset after 2025.

The House Ways and Means Committee voted 24–16 on Thursday to send the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, H.R. 1, to the full House for a vote. However, the bill, as marked up by the committee, contains many changes from the original version of H.R. 1 released last week. Reportedly, some of these changes were made to reduce the 10-year cost of the bill, and according to a preliminary estimate by the Joint Committee on Taxation, the net effect of the bill as marked up would be to reduce federal revenues by